Talk:Veganism/Archive 6

Vgans are ppl who dont eat anything that come from animals The Vegan page should have a nutrition section or a link to one. Vegan diets lack essential proteins unless planned somewhat carefully. For example, corn and beans when eaten together combine to form a protein similar to meat protein. When eaten separately, that combination doesn't occur and the result is malnourishment unless you get the protein some other way. People who stay vegan for a long time have to know about things like this. I decided it was too much bother and chose not to become flat-out vegan partly for that reason. Could someone more knowledgeable than I am about this issue please add some material about it. --phr

Well, protein combining been has shown to be a faulty theory based on a biased study. In fact, Soy protein is equivalant to animal protein for all intents and purposes. You can find more info by going to this site: Vegan Society and scrolling down to Protein Combining. Maybe you can re-evaluate veganism as a personal choice for you? :) TheChin!

We (my partner & I) have been vegan since 1984, and our 4 kids since birth, and I don't think we've ever conciously combined a protien once in all that time but we're all healthy and fine. we just eat a good variety of stuff, lots of fresh veg, fruit, pulses and grains, etc. But a link to vegan nutrition might be of value all the same, it's just that i think it's a myth that vegans have to be any more careful what they eat than anyone else, apart of course from the vitamin B12 which can be deficient (but if you eat lots of marmite it's not a problem :-) quercus robur 19:38, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Is macrobiotics more strict than vegan? I thought that macrobiotics ate fish. --mincus

From Vegan:

"There is a bit of variety in the vegan community; Europeans and Americans not only pronounce it differently..."

So? How *do* they pronounce it?

taken from http://www.vegweb.com/glossary/docs/vegan.shtml

The word vegan was invented by Donald Watson in the 1940's. It is pronounced "vee-gun". This is the most common pronunciation in the UK today. No one can say this pronunciation in "wrong", so this is also the politically correct pronunciation.

In the US, common pronunciations are "vee-jan" and "vay-gn" in addition to "vee-gn", though the American Vegan Society says the correct pronunciation is as per the UK.

(as a side note, I am an American and have always pronunced vee-gun)

Thanks. Suggest this info be included on the Vegan page.

Regarding the creation of a Vegetarianism page which consists solely of a link to Vegan: I would prefer that such 'empty' stub pages not be created until there is some real content in the article. See Wikipedia commentary/Kill the Stub Pages for some different opinions on this issue.

Anyway, I'll have a first draft of a Vegetarianism article written up by this evening (Melbourne time), but feel free to jump in ahead of me. -- Claudine

As long time American vegan the statement "European vegans also generally won't eat honey, while American ones generally will" strikes me as false. The majority of people who claim to be vegans that I have met, in the US, do not consume honey nor would they consider it to be vegan.

There are more strict versions of veganism. One is the macrobiotic diet. This is incorrect. Though the macrobiotic diet is very restrictive, it is not a vegetarian diet. See your own definition of macrobiotic for one...

Finally, there are people who call themselves breatharians, which while not scientifically proven, on paper is a form of veganism. I removed this on the grounds that the article on Jasmuheen, apparently a primary advocate of breatharianism, suggests that she sometimes eats cheesecake...something not reknowned for being vegan. However, if anyone feels strongly that the 'paper definition' of breatharianism is vegan then please return the statement...but, by this token, breatharians are a sub-set of omnivores too! Mazzy

I guess it is vacuously true that Breatharianism is an instance of any kind of diet.

I rewrote this entry pretty substantially

include pronunciation
include distinction of dietary vegans
make distinction between vegan products and practicing vegans
some nutrition stuff with reference
related diets, religions bit
removed out of place bit on Eastern Orthodoxy
add useful references and remove silly ones
clarify passage on

I'm all for 'balance' but much of

The Naive Vegetarian http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html

seems to be this person's personal prejudices against vegans & vegetarians, with 'evidence' of the 'harm' that 'extreme' vegetarian diets cause to children. Any bad diet, vegan or vegetarian or omnivorous can cause harm to children. Conversely, any 'good' diet, vegan, veggie or omnivorous, will ensure that childrens nutritional and health needs are met quercus robur 09:29 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

I've restored the word 'strive' to this articel as it's agreed by most vegans I've met that it's virtually impossible to elimonate absolutely ALL animal products from the diet or lifestyle in today's world, eg, most fruit is grown on trees that have been grafted, often using beeswax to join the graft to the rootstock, most vegetable crops will have been grown on land that has been fertilised with animal manure that is a by-product of the farming industry, much commercial sugar has been refined using bone charcoal in it's production and so on... Thus most vegans will accept that they will never totally free themselves from all animal products, but do strive towards this as a goal. quercus robur 20:06 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

By that definition, if a child were raised in a vegan community, never coming into contact with any other way of life, it would not be considered a vegan since there'd be no conscious striving involved. Meanwhile, someone who strives to be vegan but every now and then succumbs to cravings and goes on a McDondald's binge would be considered a vegan.

That strikes me as incorrect; veganism is defined by actions, not intent. You don't re-define an ideal just because you deem it impractical or too difficult to attain. Mkweise 05:34 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

I wonder if there is one single person on the planet who has been able to consciously eliminate all animal products or animal suffering from their lifestyle: even 100% vegan organically grown food involves some degree of pest control which inevitably will cause some mortality to an animal somewhere, even if it's only a slug or 2 falling in a beer trap [actually, vegan organic growers commonly delegate pest control to the local wildlife and don't interfere further. It's up to you whether you consider that vegan or not.]... Therefore the best any vegan can ever do is strive to eliminate animal products and suffering, as it is an unattaniable goal, for by the 'action not intent' criteria most vegans in fact would not be vegan if they were to consume such vegetables, or, indeed, consume fruit from a tree that has been grafted with bees wax, but most vegans would certainly do their best (strive) to elimnate animal products or suffering as far as possible or practical from their lives. This is not the same as popping down McDonalds when the urge takes your fancy, which wouldn't be striving at all... Therefore I would consider it a valid use of the word, but I'm not going to go to war over it :-) quercus robur 09:23 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

It struck to me when I read "strives", because it sounds so pejorative and unbalanced. That many so-called vegans only eliminate partially animal products doesn't change the fact that "a vegan is a person that avoids the use of animal products" (note the absence of "all", and maybe add "tries to" or "to a certain degree"). Not all vegans "strive", and I do know examples. So if you say "strives" you are going to leave out a lot of vegans from the definition, and also you are putting the stress in the wrong place, as the whole point to vegans is to "avoid", not to "strive to avoid".

I thought all that was obvious and that the "strives" thing had simply passed unnoticed, so I changed it. I didn't know there was discussion about it, sorry! Now I said my maybe-not-so-obvious reasons, I am very much for removing "strives", together with "all" and maybe explaining how difficult it is to be "vegan in a full degree". JBC May 20, 2003

No problem, I think with wiki we just have to be a bit careful that what is obvious to one person may not be to another... The edit you are proposing sounds fine to me, BTW, I've been vegan myself since 1984 so I hope you didn't take my comments as being pejorative towards vegans... quercus robur 16:53 20 May 2003 (UTC)

Not at all, it just sounded like that to me, I didn't think it was the intention anyway. And yes, I should be more careful. I'm quite a newbie here at wiki and, by the way, I do appreciate that a much more experienced one like you is taking care of these pages... thanks! JBC 17:25 May 20, 2003 (UTC)

The "as far as possible" clause is definitely preferable to saying "strives", which really bothered me. I still think it's completely redundant, as "avoids" already covers avoidance with partical success. It also weakens the definition, as one's definition of necessity may include e.g. a misinformed doctor's orders. Mkweise 17:28 21 May 2003 (UTC)

How vegan is using second hand leather shoes and clothes? Not at all, or..?

Well, I wouldn't do it (except maybe in an emergency situation), partly because it might send the wrong signals, that it is ok to use leather.. This might encourage people to purchase new leather products. However, this is verging on the pedantic and is in danger of leading vegans to be labelled as cranks. IMHO.

I would say second hand leather shoes are totally vegan. Veganism is always moral/political, never entirely dietary, so vegans don't buy new leather because it pays for the slaughter of a cow and the toxic tanning of its hide, but the cow has already been killed if its second hand and buying used things is enviromentally friendly. IMHO. Hyacinth 16:57, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

By the same argument then it is ok, indeed required, to purchase lampshades made from the skin of Auschwitz victims, rather than a new lampshade made from synthetic materials, if we have that choice. I know what my choice would be. Sorry to be so extreme, but these things are happening every day to animals.

TonyClarke 19:23, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I wonder about the validity of the CNN poll quoted in this article: perhaps it rules out people who are vegan, but would not call themselves vegetarian? TonyClarke 13:02, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ethics of Motivation

I could said that veganism is in and of itself imoral, as plants are not considered able to "feel" by vegans dispite the lack of traits that make animals mentaly,or emotionaly distinctive from plants.Thus veganism is just as "Kingdomist" as vegans consider non-veganism specist.

Removed the above from main article, many vegans use the basis of sentience as the line upon which to draw their ethical objections to the use of animal products. Most plants aren't demonstrably sentient in the way that most animals are, and even if vegans are mistaken in their ethics regarding this issue, it doesn't make them 'immoral'quercus robur 16:53, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Some people consider the usage "vegan food" to be synonymous with "vegetarian food", however a necessary distinction due to the strange but popular notion that dairy and eggs (and sometimes even fish or fowl) to be "vegetarian foods".

Removed the above from the main article. The existence of the market for "vegetarian eggs" shows that, indeed, eggs are believed to be vegetarian. A vegetarian egg is one where the chicken is fed corn and not bone meal. It's silly to be splitting hairs on the old "how vegetarian is vegetarian" debate and it doesn't really belong on the vegan page anyway, because vegan was a term created just to avoid hair splitting like this. If text like the above were included (to get rid of any true confusion) it shouldn't call the notion "strange". MShonle 07:09, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Mshonle,

I would appreciate this being (partially) reverted, as I can argue the term "vegan product" is unnecessary, as it should be synonomous with "vegetarian product". However, many corporations are involved in deceptive practices and label foods "100% Vegetarian!" or "Suitable for Vegetarians" which contain animal products. This is should be addressed in the article.

The word "vegetarian" (person) is a synonym for herbivore, meaning, eating only plants. Now I realize that many people who call themselves vegetarian consume dairy and eggs. This does not make dairy and eggs "vegetarian".

A vegetarian diet is "Consisting primarily or wholly of vegetables and vegetable products". (refer) Eggs and dairy ARE NOT VEGETABLE PRODUCTS. There is nothing at all "vegetarian" about a cheese omlet, for example.

I would consent to removal of "strange" if this controversy was covered.

MShonle 23:10, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC) replies: First, vegan product is not synonmous with vegetarian product. Lip balm could be made of beeswax, which is vegetarian. Also, a vegetarian product could be tested on an animal, a vegan product never can be tested. Further more, vegetarian to refer to people is not a synonym for herbivore. The word vegetarian did not derive from the word vegetable, it derived from the latin vegitus, which means lively, energetic (think of vegetation).

Also, wether you like it or not, the word vegetarian refers to people who do not eat meat but who possibly eat eggs and dairy. In fact, the wiki entry for vegetarian even begins saying this is so. Language is dictated by usage, not by fiat. The majority of the literature today says vegetarian means, for example, that cheese is ok, just as long as it doesn't have rennet. I challenge you to go to any vegetarian restaurant in America and order any random menu item to give to a vegan: odds are they would not find that policy acceptable. Either case, you do not seem impartial on this controversy. If it was one or two companies messing up and claiming rennet is vegetarian, that's one thing. You should post something discussing the confusion in meaning, but please be impartial and don't say that one is "the correct" one. A put it on the vegetarian page. You are confusing "strict vegetarian" with "vegetarian."

What is a sublingual vitamin? Rmhermen 16:16, Feb 9, 2004 (UTC)

Also, a 'vegan' diet is the norm in most parts of the world, partly for economic reasons, but a clear outcome is the absence of the diseases of the developed world such as cancer, heart and other obesity-related illnesses.

(1) You're saying that cancer and heart disease are absent in vegan societies? I'm sure that's not true. (2) Is obesity less common in parts of the world because of veganism or because of a lack of abundance of available food? (3) What exactly does "the norm in most parts of the world" mean? I can believe that most of the world follows a mostly vegan diet (whether from ideology or necessity), but I doubt that most of the world follows a purely vegan diet.

I think this sentence needs some NPOV-ing.

These facts are quoted by those who feel that 'veganism' is a modern localised and reactionary movement, rather than a movement which advocates a return to what is seen as a healthier and simpler lifestyle.

Uh, this is backwards isn't it? These facts would be quoted by people who think that veganism is a return to what is seen as a healthier and simpler lifestyle, no?

Axlrosen 15:39, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hmm - I would have guessed people ate whatever they could get - insects, bushmeat, etc. I don't think this common veganism will stand scrutiny. Rmhermen 15:44, Feb 24, 2004 (UTC)

Hi OK hands up, I'll look at what I wrote again, with your valued comments in mind.

TonyClarke 23:09, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, that's improved. Still some concerns:

* I'm not convinced that in most parts of the world, people follow a mainly vegan diet. Do you have a (relatively unbiased) reference for this?

* The whole flow of the "reaction or return to nature" section still seems out of whack to me. I'm not sure what it's getting at. Does it really say what it's supposed to say? The first two paragraphs, and the last paragraph, seem to be saying that veganism is NOT a return to nature, while the 3rd and 4th paragraphs seem to be saying that it is. Yet there are now "however"s or "on the other hands"s as I would expect. I'm confused.

Axlrosen 15:52, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi,

Well as regards point one, googling produced some statistics on two countries chosen at random, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, info from the Food and Agricultural Organisation, admittedly there is not good nutrition in these countries, to put it mildly:

"Cereals and green vegetbles form the main part of the Zimbabwean diet...table shows 2 1/2 per cent on average of daily energy supply obtained from animal sources. (1997 ) info from http://www.fao.org/es/esn/nutrition/zim-e.stm Pakistan: the consumption of meat and fish is very low, providing 2% of daily energy Cereals are the main source of dietary energy(62%)"

`I suspect more than 2% of our supermarkets are given over to animal based foods?

Point two, I'll have another look at the flow.

TonyClarke 18:32, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

www.fao.org is an interesting resource, thanks for pointing that out. Wherever you Googled that from, they're reading it wrong. They seem to be looking at the percentage of "meat & offal", but ignoring "fish & seafood", "animal fats", and "milk & eggs". Here are the total numbers for a few different countries:

China: 16%

India: 7.5%

Pakistan: 14%

Zimbabwe: 8%

Granted, I'm sure the numbers for the US and Europe are higher than this - but I'd hardly call this "mainly vegan". (Even for a low number like India's - I know that milk products are a regular part of most Indian diets.) Since China + India + US + Europe is over half the world's population, I think we can safely conclude that the majority of the world is NOT vegan or "mainly vegan". (What does "mainly vegan" even mean? If I eat 49% animal products then am I "mainly vegan"?)

So, I think this stat has to go.

Axlrosen 19:00, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi The figures I looked at did not seem so high, and seemed to include fish, dairy etc. Statistics can be deceiving. I've reworded it to refer to vegetarian or vegan, and made some other changes to try to make clear what I meant. I changed the financial reason for widespread veganism, it suggested the amusing picture of people waiting thousands of years for affordable hamburgers to come along (!), hope you don't mind. TonyClarke 23:10, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Secretlondon: you've moved the "References" section from nutrition to the end of the document. Those references apply specifically to nutrition and not to veganism in general - should they not therefore stay in the nutrition section? If not, we should probably add a note like "see references below" in that section, and change the heading "References" to a == instead of a === KarlNaylor 09:06, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

OK, as it's been 7 days since I posted this (I wrote the above on the 5th, but only added a signature on the 7th when I'd made a username for myself), and there's been no reply, I'm gonna go ahead and attempt to fix the situation myself. Feel free to change it if you don't like it. -- Karl Naylor 14:14, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

User:Mshonle, User:Mkweise, "most" what?Hyacinth 03:14, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See [1] in the edit history. Most (if not all) vegans avoid sugar that has been filtered through bone char, etc. You'll find lots of info on the web (and in books predating the web) about which brands of various products are known to be suitable for vegans and which aren't. Mkweise 04:36, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)